Annual Distinguished Lecture: Gods at the Gate of Modernity—Religious Arts in Colonial Calcutta

Why It Matters

Re‑evaluating god prints elevates a neglected visual culture, informing museum narratives and expanding educational resources on South Asian religious art.

Key Takeaways

• God prints evolved from cheap devotional items to scholarly subjects.
• Ravi Varma’s lithographs set template for later Indian religious posters.
• Colonial Calcutta’s Kalighat artists mass‑produced vibrant Kali imagery.
• Modern exhibitions at Met and Boston re‑contextualize these prints.
• Student engagement shows god prints’ educational and cultural relevance.

Summary

The Metropolitan Museum’s Distinguished Lecture, titled “Gods at the Gate of Modernity,” examined the rise of mass‑produced Hindu devotional prints—often called “god prints”—in colonial Calcutta and their display in the new “Household Gods: Hindu Devotional Prints, 1860‑1930” exhibition.

Professor Richard Davis traced the genre from early 19th‑century lithographic workshops in Calcutta and the Kalighat temple precinct, through the pioneering work of Raja Ravi Varma, whose 1894 press introduced high‑quality color lithographs that became templates for later commercial artists. He highlighted how cheap, brightly colored sheets—sometimes sold for under five cents—were framed, advertised, and repurposed, creating a thriving visual economy that blended religious devotion with consumer culture.

Davis cited specific examples, such as the iconic Kali figure with a third eye and severed‑head garland, and showed how Ravi Varma’s Saraswati designs were reinterpreted by 20th‑century printers like Kondiah Raju. He also referenced recent scholarship by Chris Pinney and Kajri Jain, and the collecting efforts of Mark Baron and Elise Boisante that have rescued rare Calcutta prints for museum display.

By situating these prints within both colonial history and contemporary museum practice, the lecture argues that god prints deserve scholarly attention and can serve as pedagogical tools, reshaping how institutions present South Asian visual culture and how audiences understand the intersection of art, religion, and modernity.

Original Description

In Calcutta, the cosmopolitan colonial capital of 19th-century India, artists and artisans adapted new technologies of mechanical reproduction to render the Hindu gods more accessible and affordable. During this time, they pioneered the chromolithographic religious print, a form of popular devotional imagery that became ubiquitous in twentieth-century India. This lecture explores how this new genre emerged and proliferated into the pervasive visual language of modern India.

This lecture is made possible by the generous support of Jeff Soref and Paul Lombardi.

Richard H. Davis, Research Professor of Religion, Bard College, New York

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Household Gods: Hindu Devotional Prints, 1860–1930.

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